"This is a totally new direction for us," said Debi Durham, president and CEO of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce. "We are an agribusiness economy, but there is room for an alternative lifestyle."

Durham added, "Within the next 10 years, we will be known as the organic capital -- of the world."

Such a prediction is almost mind-boggling, considering that the county had not one registered acre of organic farmland in the 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture census -- and this in a county with a total 450,000 acres of farmland.

The area has moved slightly toward organics since then. It now has some 400 acres certified organic and six organic farmers. The force behind the effort is Rob Marqusee, a 58-year-old California transplant who serves as the county's rural economic development director.

By packaging tax incentives for organic farmers with aggressive promotion of locally grown food, Marqusee is trying to use family farming as an economic engine for shuttered stores on Main Street and shriveled rural school districts. "If you cannot make an economy based on the richest land in the world," he said, "then you're never going to make it."

Most rural economic development projects focus on luring new industries or expanding infrastructure for water, electricity or broadband, but Woodbury County's are aimed at creating a local food culture in an area that imports almost all of its food -- despite its base of powerful agribusinesses.

"It's like the cobbler with no shoes," Marqusee said.

Marqusee's unorthodox approach to economic development comes as rural areas across the country are wrestling with a deep recession and growing poverty. His goal is to start small rural businesses and repopulate schools by luring a new kind of farmer. In so doing, he is trying to put Woodbury County into the vanguard of a U.S. organic-farming and local-foods movement.

The organic and local foods movement has also gained significant traction in the new Obama administration. The Agriculture Department recently announced a new national campaign aimed at expanding opportunities for local farmers and will focus its annual outlook forum next year on "sustainable agriculture."

USDA's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" campaign employs existing federal programs -- many of which have previously focused solely on large-scale production agriculture -- to support local and regional food systems. The program is intended to help farmers bypass what has been a daunting maze of regulations to do things like sell their products to local schools or get organic certification from a local processing plant.

The campaign stemmed from a series of town hall-style meetings that Obama administration officials held across the country over the summer and fall. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, for one, echoed some of Marqusee's themes in a meeting in Hamlet, N.C.

"It is all about keeping the wealth in the community that creates it," Vilsack said. "What happens today is so much of the wealth gets transferred out. ... Wouldn't it be better if we could give it to your local farmers? It seems to me like that would make sense."

Organic boom

Marqusee wants to create new local food systems in Iowa to try to keep more of the wealth from the $200 million Sioux City food market in the area. But he also wants to help Iowa farmers help meet a national demand for organic grains and food -- currently largely supplied from outside the United States' heartland.
Since USDA developed organic standards in 2002, organic food and beverage sales have grown by more than 100 percent, according to the Organic Trade Association.

The industry has continued to grow, even as demand for the higher-priced organic products has slowed down during the recession. The growth rate of organic products surpassed 17 percent in 2008, according to the trade group's most recent sales figures. Growth in organic-food sales was triple that of conventional products during that period.

But U.S. organic farmers have not kept pace with the demand for their wares.

Less than 1 percent of U.S. farmland is dedicated to organic production. A significant portion of organic goods is imported.

So a growing number of states and local governments see opportunities to capitalize on the organic market, especially if they can help create vibrant local markets and distribution networks.